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Monday, 27 July 2015

NASS Crisis: APC group insists Speaker Dogara must cut ties with PDP

Some
members of the All Progressives Congress’ faction in the House of
Representatives known as the Loyalists Group on Sunday denied that the
leadership tussle in the legislature was over, contrary to Saturday’s
public announcement by key figures of the group.

Rather, the
lawmakers said there could only be “genuine agreement” on how to
achieve peace in the House if the Speaker, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, would
sever his “unholy ties” with the Peoples Democratic Party members of the
House.

This came amid mounting tension ahead of the rescheduled resumption of the House on Tuesday.

Dogara is also set to name the principal officers of the House tomorrow.

However,
the loyalists insisted that discussions on peace must be with all the
members of the group lead by a former Minority Leader of the House, Mr.
Femi Gbajabiamila.

The members, who addressed a news conference
in Abuja, argued that an APC-dominated legislature with a leadership by
the PDP was not their idea of the change the APC worked hard to attain
at the 2015 general election.

The spokesman for the group, Mr.
Nasir Zangon-Daura, gave this position at the news conference, where 21
out of the 174 members of the group showed up.

However, Zangon-Daura explained that he had the mandate of the absentee members to speak on their behalf.

He
denied that any concessions or offers on how to resolve the crisis had
been offered to the group, against a position taken by key members of
the group in Abuja on Saturday.

Zangon-Daura
said, “To have a genuine agreement that is not tainted by the PDP, the
Dogara group will have to first of all cut off the umbilical cord
between it and the PDP and secondly, engage in candid reconciliatory
discussions with our group as a whole through our approved members under
the leadership of Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila.

“We
are, however, aware of the Trojan offers of party principal officers’
positions being made to individuals in our group in their individual
capacities in order to lure them from our group.

“We,
hereby, restate for the avoidance of any doubt that this struggle is
not about Femi Gbjabiamila, Yakubu Dogara, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, Mohammed
Monguno or Pally Iriase.

“This
is about being loyal and committed to the party’s manifesto, which
among others, includes the fight against corruption by President
Muhammadu Buhari.”

Zangon-Daura
recalled that efforts to resolve the leadership tussle culminated in an
intervention by the APC’s Governors’ Forum through the Governor of
Sokoto State, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal.

He noted that, having met the
loyalists group led by Gbajabiamila and the Consolidation Group of
Dogara, the former expected the Tambuwal committee to convene a meeting
of the two sides for further discussions.

Zangon-Daura added
that while this second phase of meetings was being awaited, it came to
them as a surprise that the Dogara group had appointed principal
officers and was about to unveil them on Tuesday.

“This second meeting between Governor Aminu Tambuwal and our group has yet to take place,” he said.

On
Saturday, Ado-Doguwa (Kano State); Iriase (Edo State); and Monguno
(Borno State) seen as strong mobilisers of the loyalists group, had
declared support for Dogara, a move that confirmed the crack in the
group.

The lawmakers claimed that they had realised it was
better to place the interest of the country ahead of all other
considerations to accept the positions of the principal officers of the
House as proposed by Dogara.